Innovative Ways to Corrupt Government

I suspect this sort of thing (or perhaps more-mild variations) are more common than we know:

“Public records obtained by CEI show a pattern of law enforcement offices turning to off-the-books payments for privately funded lawyers to push a political agenda that was roundly rejected at the ballot box by the American people,” said Horner. “The scheme raises serious questions about special interests setting states’ policy and law enforcement agendas, without accountability to the taxpayers and voters whom these law enforcement officials supposedly serve.”

These public emails and documents reveal the details of an unprecedented, coordinated effort between environmental groups, plaintiffs’ lawyers, and major liberal donors using nonprofit organizations to fund staff, research, public relations, and other services for state attorney general offices. One nonprofit uses a center, established by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to pay for Special Assistant Attorneys General (SAAGs) for the AG offices that agree to advance progressive legal positions. Offices that have taken on board a privately funded prosecutor are Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia. Senior attorneys from the activist AG offices have even flown in to secretly brief prospective funders of another nonprofit, Union of Concerned Scientists, which has recruited AGs and served as their back-room strategist and advisor on this since at least 2015.

Government has so much power that special interests will inevitably seek innovative ways to leverage it. Yesterday, my Twitter stream was full of investigations into relatively low-dollar campaign finance questions concerning relatively unknown candidates for office, as if the inherent corruption of big government’s every day operation is less scandalous!

However one balances newsworthiness, the solution is the same: shrink the size and authority of government and thereby reduce the incentive to invest in corruption. Unfortunately, people tend to support big government because they want it to do a particular thing. If their fellow citizens disagree and bring about an elected government that is less inclined to do that thing, they’ll seek other means.

“… was roundly rejected at the ballot box by the American people…”I think he means to say supported by a majority of the voters.

Rhett Hardwick

Justin, thank you for this post. It is a situation that I was unaware of. I see that today’s Boston Herald notes that the Attorney General is quitting to join the MIntz, Levin law firm. Particularly the ML Strategies Group, I assume that to be their lobbying arm. I wonder how they got to know each other.